A simple life inventory can help you live well in 2011

Some time ago, we dubbed life in our busy household “blissful chaos,” with emphasis on the “chaos.” It’s sometimes so chaotic, in fact, that my husband and I can do nothing more than laugh and fall into bed at night, exhausted. In the midst of all the busyness, it can be tough to move beyond what often feels like a series of small crises (like having to fish a Matchbox car out of the toilet or a pebble from someone’s nose).

Even as our children get older, we’ll trade one kind of busyness for another. We’ll swap diapers and toddler beds for things like dance classes and T-ball. We recognize that the pace of our lives isn’t likely to slow down.

Nevertheless, we agree that we don’t want to get swept up in busyness for its own sake. Instead, we want to know that we’re using our time and money with purpose and intention. That’s why we decided to take a small “life inventory” of 2010, asking ourselves questions that include, “What specific activities brought us the most and least joy this year?” “What were our greatest financial successes and missteps?”

Focusing our time with our summer activity list helped us to squeeze in lots of simple pleasures that we might not have otherwise experienced. We flew kites and had a squirt gun fight, roasted marshmallows in our backyard fire pit and built sandcastles. On the other hand, my husband and I both agree that we spent far too much time on the computer this year and wasted precious energy trying to keep the house picked up during the day when we’re home with the kids. On both accounts, we’d rather be investing in the lives of our children and in our relationship as a married couple.

As for our financial successes, we are fortunate to have had many in 2010. Those successes include paying off our minivan and saving enough money to install a gas stove in our home. The latter was possible as a result of reigning in our food budget and funneling the money we saved to help us reach our goal.

We also fulfilled a promise to our children and brought home three fluffy chicks last spring; those same chicks are now roosting in the coop that my husband and his father built. Our hens are also finally giving us a few eggs, which has been cause for much excitement around our house.

As for our missteps, these include making a small tactical error during a construction project and ending up $800 over budget, waiting until the last minute to do our Christmas shopping (which meant major budget strain this year), overspending on food some months, and failing to rethink our retirement account contributions. And though we were able to complete a number of projects around our house, we had to dip deeply into our savings account to do so. This means that we need to focus on rebuilding our account in the coming year.

By recognizing what we did well and what we’d like to improve on, we’ll be more prepared to set realistic goals for 2011.

What went well for you this year? What areas of your life could use improvement? In any season of life, taking a simple inventory could help you focus your time and resources on the things you really want to accomplish. I’d encourage you to pause in the busyness of this season, and in your life as a whole, to look back at 2010 and use what you learn to chart a course for the year to come.

Comfort on the go makes traveling easier

I often joke that the key to parenting four young children is to always have food. A stick of gum or a piece of candy works wonders in the grocery store. A sucker is a little bit of magic when we’re on the homestretch of a long trip. A few crackers can stall before-lunch anarchy.

In other words, small comforts, made possible with just a little bit of planning, can make life easier, and generally more pleasant, for our busy family. Our wee ones are less apt to melt down, and we do a better job of keeping our budget intact when we’re prepared for outings. This is true whether we’re heading out for a day of running errands, or taking a trip across the state, such as the one we’re planning this holiday.

No matter what your personal situation, you’ll be better prepared to deal with the stress of holiday travel when you plan ahead. You’ll also save money when you take time to make some relatively small travel preparations. After all, who hasn’t been so desperate in an airport that you resort to eating a $6 pretzel, or been so famished that convenience store beef sticks, packaged alongside unrefrigerated cheese, suddenly look appealing?

While it’s impossible to account for every possible travel glitch—lost luggage or sketchy roads, for example—you can be ready to deal with two inevitable aspects of traveling: hunger and boredom. We’re able to deal with the former by picking up special food items in the days leading up to our trip. These include treats like juice boxes and crazy-long licorice ropes.

Just the sheer anticipation of something out of the ordinary helps our children deal with the seemingly endless prairie stretched out before us. And though the idea of a foot of licorice may not be appealing to you, you can plan for your own kind of travel indulgences.

For road travel, for example, you could brew your favorite coffee at home and take it along in an insulated Thermos. Or you can buy yourself candy you love, or pack your own boxed meal for an airline flight. Make homemade granola or simply stock up on your favorite energy bars. With preparations such as these, you’ll make a small upfront investment, but you’ll save money and feel more satisfied in the long run.

As for dealing with travel boredom, we have our own specialized coping mechanisms. Namely, these include new or favorite books and CDs, stickers, and pocket-size notebooks and crayons. When the situation gets really desperate, we break out press-on tattoos and the aforementioned suckers. We’ve even been known to stop at a park and brave subzero temperatures, just as a way to get everybody out of the car and break up the trip.

Again, press-on tattoos and wintery romps in the park probably won’t suit you, but getting a free download for your digital reader or checking out books or back issues of a magazine from the library could be an appropriate (and budget-friendly) substitute. An audio version of a book is yet another way you can pass the time during your travels – especially if the plot is a thriller guaranteed to keep you alert during long hours of driving. Or you could even write a few handwritten notes or finish a knitting or embroidery project, if these kinds of pursuits interest you.

Amid the busyness of the season, take time to pack a few comforts to pamper yourself and your family. A little planning goes a long way toward making us calmer and happier during stressful holiday travels.

One simple change can make life, money management easier

In a house with four children, I can easily become besieged by laundry. It mounts quickly, but takes hours to tackle all the tiny socks and spaghetti-stained t-shirts. On any given day, there is a load of laundry sitting somewhere, waiting to be stain-treated, washed, dried, folded, or put away.

Laundry isn’t complicated (unless you end up drying a piece of wayward gum, which has been known to happen at my house), but it is a process that can be overwhelming. That’s why I decided to remove the hampers from my children’s rooms and set up a canvas cart with three separate bins.My children now drop off their dirty clothes in a centralized location, where it immediately gets sorted by color. When one bin gets full, I can do laundry without having to walk all over the house dumping out hampers and sorting clothing.

My experience with the laundry cart reminds me how valuable one small change can be. Though I’ll never be free of laundry, I have found a way to streamline the task. In the same way, you will always have to deal with money, no matter how much or little you have. Too often, people get overwhelmed by the idea of getting their finances under control. When they don’t know what to do first, they often end up doing nothing.

You can learn to manage your money effectively by making one small change at a time. Start by asking yourself, “What isn’t working well?” For example, do you have a habit of paying bills late and ending up with late fees? Do you scramble when the holidays approach, then overspend on your gift purchases? Do you eat out more often than you would like?

Once you identify one area you would like to improve, then you can consider a simple solution. Suppose you want to stop paying your bills late. Start by putting your bills in one place and setting aside one or two specific days every month to pay them. If necessary, set up e-mail reminders or ask a trusted friend to keep you accountable.

If you want to build an emergency fund, set a relatively small goal--$500 to $1,000—and sign up for an automatic payroll deduction. You’ll never miss what you don’t see, and you’ll be encouraged when your savings balance grows each month.

If you want to spend less eating out, pack your lunch the night before. You can also stock your desk or work area with hearty, non-perishable foods such as trail mix, dehydrated soup mixes, granola bars, juice boxes, beef jerky or almonds. In a pinch, you can eat what you have on hand, and you won’t be tempted to dash out and buy something instead.


Planning ahead can help you rely less on convenience foods, too. You could cook and freeze several meals for later. My husband’s thrifty 89-year-old grandmother does this, creating complete, individual meals for herself. Even learning how to cook one or two new dishes can help you to spend less on expensive, ready-made food.

Advance planning also can help you avoid the last-minute holiday crush. If you can’t avoid it this year, start fresh in January. Make a gift list at the beginning of the year. Then, commit to making or buying just one gift a month; come next December, you—and your budget—won’t be stressed.

Ultimately, you’re in the best position to decide what solutions will work for you. Starting small will let you build on your success, allowing you to get your finances under control one simple change at a time.

Find budget-friendly holiday items in your own backyard

As I prepared to host Thanksgiving dinner for 20 guests this year, I contemplated buying a decorative porcelain turkey for my table. At $20, it wouldn’t have broken the bank, but it was an expense I hadn’t planned for. Plus, I would have had to find a place to store the colorful gobbler for the 11 months of the year that he wouldn’t be gracing my table.

So instead of bringing home the turkey, I sought inspiration in the grocery store and bought a half-pound of unshelled mixed nuts, a few pears, and as many red apples, which cost me less than $10 (and that have the added benefit of being consumable). Then I “shopped” my own home for items I could use to complete my display. I used brown craft paper to make a table runner and filled three glass hurricanes with my grocery store goodies. As a finishing touch, I wound gold ribbon through the hurricanes and scattered harvest-colored paper leaves down the center of the table.

Inspired by the idea of using what I have on hand, I plan to use creative, budget-friendly ways to decorate for the Christmas season, too. That effort started this weekend with some evergreen boughs leftover from a cut tree. I plan to use the boughs to make a wreath and a garland for the picket fence in front of my house. I’ll also make a garland from pinecones collected from our yard and repurpose a few unworn (and itchy) wool sweaters into handmade ornaments and stockings for our children.

The idea of using what you have on hand can be applied to budget-friendly gift giving, as well. With a little time and ingenuity, you can transform everyday items into special gifts. Using a book about drawing that I picked up in the discard box at my library, for instance, I plan to frame pictures of my 3-year-old son’s favorite cars.


I may even try drawing him a Volkswagen Beetle myself. I’ll also transfer one of my daughter’s drawings onto linen I have in my stash and embroider it to capture a piece of art she’s created. For my other son, who is so smitten with baseball that he draws and cuts out paper bats and balls, I could cover a pillow with a baseball jersey. Or, I might trace one of his drawings onto a favorite, outgrown shirt and sew it into a small stuffed toy.

As you decorate your home this year or look for gifts to delight your recipients, start by surveying what’s around you. For example, branches collected from your yard and tucked into a small vase make a perfect foil for hanging handmade or miniature ornaments; the end result could become a centerpiece or serve as a hostess gift. Store-bought paperwhite bulbs planted in an old wooden bowl or a thrifted pot—embellished with Spanish moss and a satin ribbon—make an elegant gift or mantle display.

Food items made with inexpensive ingredients and presented in creative ways also make memorable gifts. With a few simple ingredients, you can make hot fudge sauce and present it to a friend or a child’s teacher in a Mason jar with a handmade label. Or you can tuck loose tea and a jar of honey in a pretty vintage tin you’ve been saving.

Décor and gifts that start with items in my home and yard give me a special sense of satisfaction. They require more imagination than money, and the results are uniquely personal and original. Look around your own home or yard this holiday season – you never know what wonderful ideas you’ll come up with.

Holiday Manifesto

I’ve confessed before that I have a knack for making things far more complicated than necessary. It’s a trait that often leaves me scrambling and my husband tearing out his hair. “Why can’t anything just be simple around here?” he’s been known to ask. Though I’ve balked at his question over the years, I have to admit that my husband is right: simple is better than complicated.

Yet it’s easy to make things complicated, without fully realizing I’m doing it. Perhaps this is no more the case than when it comes to the holidays. Holiday schedules fill up too quickly, the gift budget gets stretched, the dinner menu keeps growing and the days seem to morph into one another, sometimes becoming one frenetic blur.

To help keep us focused on the simple things we enjoy, we’ve revived our manifesto idea from last summer and created a Holiday Manifesto. Together, we’ve made a list that will help us to be intentional with our time and money and to savor the best of the season.

List suggestions for our manifesto run the gamut from traditional activities, such as sledding and making snow angels to more unique ideas that include making super hero ornaments and homemade peppermint ice cream. At the urging of our stick-obsessed four-year-old son, we plan to play broomball on a local pond. We’ll also work on building a snow fort and roast marshmallows in our backyard.

Like our summer list, the suggestions our children offered tended toward the simple (except making super hero ornaments, perhaps). And almost all of the ideas we compiled will cost virtually nothing.

When my husband suggested we add “have a slumber party by the gas stove” to the list, for example, the kids got so excited that I thought they’d jump out of their skin. Their excitement had me recalling my own childhood memories of camping out on the living room floor, of waking up and seeing the twinkling lights of our Christmas tree. Dragging out sleeping bags and sprawling out on the floor couldn’t be simpler, but it’s very likely that we’ll be making memories that last a lifetime.

My own contributions to our Holiday Manifesto include sending out Christmas cards (the first time I’ve done so in more than 11 years), making candy bar hot chocolate with real whipped cream, and decorating our home with natural elements we already have or that we can forage from our property.

Some other items that made the list include decorating cookies, singing Christmas carols, and baking an apple pie. Perhaps my favorite suggestion came from my six-year-old who thought we should make sleeping in one morning a priority. For parents who almost always get woken by the sound of four pairs of stampeding fit, sleeping in would indeed be a welcome treat.

The point of our list isn’t to put pressure on us, but to give us a visual reminder of how we really want to spend our time this holiday season. To make your own list, you might try taking stock of what you did last year. What did you truly enjoy? What activities seemed to cause chaos and stress? What did you want to do but didn’t?

With answers to these questions, you can craft a list that will help you to prioritize how you want to spend your time and your money this year.